Music: An Addictive Drug

Category: Social |
Posted on 27th February 2014

I received a question from a woman a while ago about Music. I thought it was worth sharing the answer on this blog:

Question:

Salam,I am addicted to music because listening to music makes me happy and takes my mind off problems in my life. I want to stop listening to music and want to concentrate on my faith and education; I want to spend my time reciting the Quran and reading books instead. What advice would you give me?

Answer:

Music may make you "happy" and "take your mind off your problems" in the short run. I agree. In fact, if a short term euphoric sensation is what you're looking for, there are many more options including drugs, alcohol, and gambling! People drink bitter spirits and tolerate the nasty acidic burn of alcohol not for the taste (it is, after all, a poison) but for their intoxicating quality in order to distract them from the daily toils and personal problems. In his book "Civilization and its Discontents" Sigmund Freud actually asserts that the best means of subduing unhappiness and the most effective style of human adaptation used to secure pleasure from the world while also trying to avoid or limit suffering, is the consumption of alcohol! Surely as Muslims, indeed as rational human beings, we can't take these options seriously given the devastating side-effects they possess.

Music is also a drug. An odorless, colorless, and thanks to the internet, largely free drug which makes you feel good (unless you're a fan of Marylin Manson), and then leaves you with nothing but more depression and a sense of emptiness. As soon as you're out of the concert hall, or you drop that iPod, you go back to the bitter reality that is your life and, because you can't deal with that, you go back to music for comfort and distraction. While you're in your little world consumed by music, Apple celebrates the 10 billionth song downloaded from iTunes at 99 cents a pop. While we feed our addiction, Steve Jobs is laughing all the way to the bank!.

So what is the first side effect of this drug; addiction. Because it creates a false euphoria, you keep going back for another fix. It completely takes over your mind and affects your judgment. The British neurologist Oliver Sacks says: "music can involve many different parts of the brain, special parts for the response to pitch, and to frequency, and to timbre, and to rhythm, and to melodic contour, and to harmonic and everything else" thus, completely occuping the brain. That is why you'll notice that those addicted to music will often also refuse Hijab. They easily socialize with people of the opposite sex and may engage in illicit relationships.

Picture this: a pious, dignified, veiled Muslim woman jumping up and down with the tunes of a pop music concert while screaming her lungs out singing the lyrics. What's wrong with this picture? It just doesn't happen! You simply cannot mix chastity and piety with music, not even conceptually as you see from this illustration. This is why Islam closes the door shut to the range of possible detrimental pandemics by banning music (with very limited exceptions).

The Prophet says: "Allah the exalted sent me as a mercy to the worlds and commanded me to obliterate musical instruments as well as intoxicating drinks and idols that were worshiped in the era of ignorance"

This Hadeeth suggests that one of the main purposes for the final revelation is the banning of music, following spreading mercy to all of mankind! Notice, also, how the narration collectively refers to the "idols that were worshiped". Could this be a reference to Music? Perhaps so, in the sense that it is, indeed, an idol for the modern era of ignorance as it was a false idol in the ancient era as well.

The argument that music also has therapeutic benefits is irrelevant, because much like alcohol, it has been proven that it influences humans both in good and bad ways. However, in our view, the harms outweigh the benefits. Here's where it get a bit technical, but also quite interesting: Studies have shown that music affects the amplitude and frequency of brain waves, which can be measured by an electro-encephalogram. Music also affects breathing rate and electrical resistance of the skin. It has been observed to cause the pupils to dilate, increase blood pressure, and increase the heart rate.

Dr. Ballam states: "The human mind shuts down after three or four repetitions of a rhythm, or a melody, or a harmonic progression." (Ballam, Michael. Music and the Mind, pp 1-8.). Furthermore, excessive repetition causes people to release control of their thoughts. Rhythmic repetition is used by people who are trying to push certain ethics in their music.

An Australian physician and psychiatrist, Dr. John Diamond, found a direct link between muscle strength/weakness and music. He discovered that all of the muscles in the entire body go weak when subjected to the "stopped anapestic beat" of music from hard rock musicians, including Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Queen, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Bachman – Turner Overdrive, and The Band. Dr. Diamond found another effect of the anapestic beat. He called it a "switching" of the brain. Dr. Diamond said this switching occurs when the actual symmetry between both of the cerebral hemispheres is destroyed causing alarm in the body along with lessened work performance, learning and behavior problems in children, and a "general malaise in adults." In addition to harmful, irregular beats in rock music, shrill frequencies prove to also be harmful to the body. Bob Larson, a Christian minister and former rock musician, remembers that in the 70′s teens would bring raw eggs to a rock concert and put them on the front of the stage. The eggs would be hard boiled by the music before the end of the concert and could be eaten. Dr. Earl W. Flosdorf and Dr. Leslie A. Chambers showed that proteins in a liquid medium were coagulated when subjected to piercing high-pitched sounds

I hope you can be brave enough to close that door shut by making the commitment today that music will no longer be a part of your life and that you will not be enslaved by its lure.